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Gorgoldand's Gauntlet
Having heard rumors of adventure near the ruined keep of Palischuk from Kolt Dragon Slayer, what remained of the One Eye'd Dragon's Claw Clan set off in search of their fortune hoping that it would bring them one step close to their inevitable revenge. Session I: 14th of Nightal, 1374 DR As told by Zuk. Having heard rumors of adventure near the ruined keep of Palischuk from Kolt Dragon Slayer, what remained of the One Eye'd Dragon's Claw Clan set off in search of their fortune hoping that it would bring them one step close to getting the magical items necessary to combat the fearsome dracolich. The game started as we approached the ruined keep of Palischuk. We happened to know that this aged fortress is host to a small city of half-orcs. Persecuted and driven from their lands, these half breeds haphazardly rebuilt what was left of the keep and turned it into their home. As we approached the gates a pair of half-orc guards immediately were on guard. They looked scared, Zuk thought this was good. They were already showing us respect. At first negotiations to allow us to enter did not fair that well. Especially with the crusader hinting at fighting our way through and me agreeing with them that orcs are evil by nature. However Krunc, the dragon shaman, convinced the guards that we were all half-orcs adventures. Although we may look like orcs, he says, we actually are from far to the south and west and man, you should see what the full bloodied orcs look like. The stupid half-orc guards believe Krunc and allow us to enter. We believe they fell for it because of their human blood, real orcs would never have believed those lies. Walking through the twisting halls of the rebuilt fortress we happened upon a door with a roughly fashioned tankard situated above it. The door was heavy and made of a good thick wood. I reasoned that it must be the tavern. Setting the tone for the adventure I decided to kick the door down. Rolling a 19 +4 I easily shatter the DC 20 strength check needed and I turn the door into firewood. Needless to say the local patrons were terrified. Some ran for cover while others grabbed tankards and chairs, ready to fight for their very lives. Krunc calmed everyone down and soothed them with promise of free beer. I attempted to woo a female half-orc, that didn't turn out terribly well. She ran off screaming, must be the huge scythe I'm hefting around. Eventually Krunc was able to win over the tavern's bartender. Strangely the half-orc's here don't seem to all understand the beautiful orcish language. The bartender explained that the "adventure" that we had heard was referring to a local cave commonly known as Gorgoldand's Gauntlet. rumor had it that a dragon had constructed this dungeon of sorts to test local adventurers. Those that braved the perils of the Gauntlet were said to be rewarded with great treasures. The barkeep also mentioned that maps and directions to the cave were openly distributed in the are and although no one knew where they came from, most shopkeepers and townsfolk that deal with adventueres had a copy or two in store should anyone be interested. I immediately went off in search of the map, eager to get it before any of my brethren. Unfortunately my idea of asking random people in the keep did not go well. Apparently speaking orcish here is frowned upon. Krunc oh so smart reasoned that adventurers must like beer too and, as his comrades wandered off, he requested a copy of the map from the man who had, not moments earlier, served them their drinks. As fate would have it he returned not moments later with a sheet of parchment detailing the path to Gorgoldand's Gauntlet. The adventure was afoot! We would leave at sunset! Session II: 14th of Nightal, 1374 DR As told by Zuk. We left after dusk. The glare from the snow hurt our eyes and we are creatures of the night. It took us about two hours to arrive at the location depicted on the map. It was a cliff overlooking a river of some sort. I made little notice to what looked like a piton sticking at the ledge of the cliff. The map indicated that the entrance to the cave was located sixty feet beneath us. Great and we didn’t bring shovels. Little did I know that this was just one of the many mental challenges we were going to face this night. It seems that fate had put us up against a dungeon not suited to our strong points; and by fate I mean our DM. I suggested to the group that Grutt run back to the village to acquire some shovels. Of course even this discussion turned into an argument. Once I was feared and respected, now even lowly Grutt ignores my commands. Unfortunately I needed them. As the others argued I made my way over to the cliff’s edge and looked out into the world. Against my better judgment I looked down, only to spot a ledge about sixty feet below us and what appeared to be a cave’s opening. What are the chances of two cave openings I wondered? What could possibly be in the second cave… Then I figured it out! Happily I told my comrades that we would not be having to dig at all, I Zuk the smartest orc had solved our problem. We just needed to climb down the cliff and we would be rewarded soon enough with magical items! As I began to lead the way down the cliff, Gorm pulled out a rope and began tying it to the piton a couple of feet away from the ledge. Sometimes I just miss the obvious. I allow Gorm to descend first. He is the strongest of we who are left, I have seen him cut through a bear in one swing with his axe. As if somehow his blade is not deterred by mere pounds of thick hide, skin, bones, and muscle. Gorm doesn’t talk much, I often am amazed that an orc could be so stupid, but Gorm has a way about him, he often times catches the things that all of us miss. Since the time our tribe was decimated I offer him a grudging of respect. I am second down the rope, behind me is Krunc our shaman and finally Grutt. Grutt has for some reason been blessed by Gruumsh. We cannot deny that. He can do things I have never seen, and he has learned to do them without any training of any kind. He is also all sorts of stupid, and if we have a plan of any kind it takes us a while to explain to Grutt that he is not allowed to do anything; and yes that means talking to Gruumsh. Down on the ledge I pull up the winter clothing. I am cold often in the north. I get out of breath easily. I get sick often, but I take this as a necessary condition to what I study; death. If the green dragon taught me anything it was to embrace the calling. I have twisted my very soul to embrace the dark arts, and I will twist any soul I can get a hold of. The fool shaman of ours agreed that his soul was a small price to pay for power. I just have to convince Gorm and Grutt that the benefits of embraces the darkness outweigh the cons. My dark touch, the bane of all that is living, strengthens me and any who give themselves over to me. The cave’s entrance is very narrow at most five feet wide. Gorm and Grutt lead the way I follow behind me is Krunc. I mention that maybe we should try to move quieter. I get loud laughter that echo’s down the cave. Orcs don’t sneak! How else do we scare our prey if they don’t know we are even there. We move another twenty feet down the hall. Laughter is still ringing out when suddenly a spider or something swings down from above. Grutt quickly moves into position already muttering to Gruumsh. Gorm swings his axe and connects with the beast midfall. When the axe hits home the creature burst apart spreading some kind of dust explosions that engulfs both of them. Grutt quickly makes his way out coughing a bit. Gorm stumbles out hacking and coughing for minutes barely able to catch his breath. While we help him up I hear the distinct sound of laughter. Fury wells up inside me. Something is gonna die today. Gorm eventually tells us he’s alright, although I’ve never seen him look so weak. (He took 10 points of constitution damage) The narrow hallway continues until we find a rope hanging from the ceiling. Dangling from above is a thin rope, ending in a loose lasso made from hair along the ground. The words “Put FUT HEER” have been scrawled in chalk in the middle of the open lasso. We deduce that one of us should stomp our feet into the lass, while the other three pummel the crap out of whoever comes at us. Grutt after discussing this strategy with Gruumsh agrees. He eagerly stomps his foot down but nothing happens. Feeling slightly ripped off he jerks the rope down and it easily falls to the ground. I inform the group that since I’m the smartest orc here that I should be in the front. There Is no argument; good. I squeeze past Grutt and suddenly I’m plummeting through the ground and land in some kind of pit with itchy plants. I stand up healing myself with my own dark powers and look around. I missed the largest of the spikes, thankfully, and am surrounded by these strange vegetation. My skin itches. Poison Ivy. I climb out of the pit as small javelins fly by, narrowly missing me. I stand up glaring at the small creatures I see in the tunnel ahead. They are barely larger than small dogs. This will be easy and fun. I begin to charge at them menacingly waving my scythe. I dislike the look of confidence in their eyes. They run and leap down a huge gaping chasm in an open room. I suddenly am halted from my full sprint by thousands of tiny fishing hooks that have ripped into my skin. Angerly I heal myself as I watch the last of the laughing gremlins leap below my sight. Meanwhile my comrades catch up to me. Laughing and jeering at me I yell at them to cut me down. Grutt actually pushes me causing me more pain. Eventually I realize I’m not going to get any help so I just rip the trap down and rip out all the hooks. Healing myself up with a touch I shout angrily to kill those tiny bastards. The chasm is easily climbed down, Grutt and Gorm climb down to a river separating the chasm. Suddenly bursting out from beneath the waves is a nine foot tall aquatic ogre. He immediately thrusts out his spear at Gorm who parries the spear and lands a solid blow heaving through the creatures leg and ripping out large chunks of flesh. Grutt solidly lands his axe in the ogre’s back, surprise written across his face. He looks up at me and the last thing he see's is my falling body and scythe splitting open his neck like a pez dispencer. Grutt glares angrily, he dislikes it when a mere wizard gets a kill. Ahh, but now I get to feast on the creatures blood which I drink readily. I look around… no sign of the gremlins. We climb our way up the other side of the chasm and we see another hallway. This hallway quickly opens up to another room, this one strangely having an 8 foot tall wall directly across the center. I am now on trap guard, armed with the giant ogre's spear which I use to poke everything at this point. I poke the wall... nothing. Grutt suddenly leaps up the wall climbing it in one swift lunge and scales to the top standing. I hear him scream in orcish, "Fair comrades, I see a door with which a good solid smashing is in order" This is our que to try to climb the walls and save him from his own destruction. We leap up to the top of the wall, Grutt is half way to the door when suddenly from beneath us and the wooden platform that we are standing on bolts two huge cockroach looking things (rust monsters). With no knowledge of such creatures we all charge forth. If there is one thing I know about creatures, is that they usually die when metal is sliced into their body parts. I quickly yell out in orcish to Grutt, "Grutt, you must delay your innitial desires of smashing in that wonderful wooden door for reasons of the present immident destruction of your physical form; for directly behind you are two unknown assailants that appear to desire nothing more than to send your soul to Gruumsh this very moment in time" The wonderful thing about orcish, as compared to a barbaric tongue like common, is that a sentence like that can easily be said in about three seconds. A rough translation to common would be something like, "Grutt stop now, skull smash time or Grutt dead" Grutt turns around just in time to dodge one of the monsters waving some kind of weird antennea at him, he somehow manages to continue to dodge the second creatures as well. Are these tickling monsters? Grutt lands a solid blow into the first things head, followed quickly by Gorms axe as well. Both weapons immiediatly fall to rust but I don't think about this now. I have my own problems. The creatures are fast and I strangly cannot seem to land a blow on him. With only one left remaining Gorm yells a quick warning "My bretheren, it seems that these foul beast have the innate ability to utterly destroy metal with a touch, we must save our weapons for future battle I implore you to cast aside your weapons and do battle with the might that Gruumsh gave us" I realize he is speaking truth and throw my scythe over the wall. My evil touch heals me, but to all other living creatures nothing but pain is felt. Gorm has pinned the foul creature sacrificing his own armor to smash the thing's head repeatedly into the floor until it has lost consciousness. I make sure it never wakes up. We stand around in amazement deducing that my scythe would now be best wielded by Gorm. Suddenly I realize... no one has smashed in the door. I charge past them. Funny the things you do notice, when you don't have enough time to notice them. Apparently there was some kind of words or a riddle on the door, with some kind of combination to unlock it. By the time I reach the door rolling a 19 on my strength check (+4) I have figured out my own unlocking mechanism. I will never know what message that door had. I'm surprised I even remember. Stairs, ascending. Each step with a word written on it. I'm one of two people who can read and write and thus I announce I will serve as translator and trap finder! I happily read each step as I land on it. My giant spear poking the step in front of me. IT, step, Seems, BAM! My giant spear vanishes in a huge fiery flash. I'm left holding air. The third stair step completely disintegrated my spear. What kind of hell is this place. I take a reading at the rest of the words from where I stand. "It seems every second or third time I step away fate is there, without a doubt, to trap my course." Well from this riddle it seems that every second or third step is trapped. From here on up I use a coin on each step, strangely it's always the third step that's trapped and we manage to get through without losing any coins or orcs. I'm winded by the time we hit the top of the stairs. I try not to show it, luckily we all gasp in amazement at our reward. There are free weapons on the walls! I cast detect magic and they are all magical. Man this adventuring stuff is easy. A couple more of these and that dracolich is gonna get his ass pounded in. We start taking the weapons off the wall, a falchion a pair of saingham, and a spiked metal gauntlet. Gorm is swinging around his falchion. Krunc is trying to figure out what the sangham's are. Grutt is wearing the right handed spiked metal gauntlet. I notice that under the weapons there is some writing in common on the plaques they were mounted in. About this time Grutt asks me what the gauntlet does. I tell him that it is a gauntlet of stupidity. I act confused and wonder aloud why it's not having any affect on poor Grutt. About this time Gorm notices a door on the north wall. Krunc says maybe there are more magical items through the door. We all like this idea a lot. I tell Grutt to go knock on the door with his magical gauntlet. He struts over to the door, and like a pompous human knocks loudly three times. "Not without the password you don't, What's the password?", a voice emanates from the door. Grutt jumps back and we all laugh at him for being scared of a door. I suggest maybe the password is for the dragon who created this dungeon and maybe we aren't suppose to continue pass this point. Gorm points at the writing I was looking at earlier and asks me what it says. I glance at the writing again and read aloud each one translating it into orcish for everyone's convenience: Under the siangham it says: "PA'S HAND WEAPONS, GUTSTICKERS." under the spiked gauntlet it says: "PA'S GAUNTLET, FIST OF PAIN" under the falchion it says: "PA'S SWORD, ISLET'S LAUGHTER" Gorm announces that obviously these are clues to a password. He does appear to be right. We spend 3 hours and 40 minutes trying to deduce what the password could be. Finally Krunc suggest that maybe the password would be easier to figure out if we look at them as words spelled in common instead of orcish. Then he points out at the plaque. "It's not PA'S SWORD" it's Password! the password is lets Laughter! We run eagerly to the door and announce that the password is lets laughter. Nothing happens.. Twenty minutes go by before I suggest we all laugh around the door. That's how we found ourselves laughing around a door for five minutes to no avail. Frustrated and angry at this stupid door I began to get disgruntled when Grutt started conversing with Gruumsh. "You call yourself orcs, what kind of an orc see's the word lets laughter. Gruumsh thinks maybe you have too much human blood running through your veins, as the PASSWORD IS LET SLAUGHTER" We stand amazed as the door swings open. Grutt the idiot figured out this mental riddle. Either that or he really IS talking to Gruumsh. Neither option is very realistic and I try not to think about it. Instead we press on through the room into another room. Four skeletons line the back wall standing in front of a mirror. The mirror shows us the room we're in, with us in it. Except the entire room is covered in treasure. Grutt rushes forward as if he is going to attack his mirror image. A skeleton moves to intercept him and a short battle rages on. His gauntlet bust through the skeletons head sending a shower of splintered wood against the mirror. Wood? That's not the only weird thing, none of the skeletons have eye sockets, just smooth bone. Regardless we dispatch these weakling fake skeletons with ease. Grutt goes to attack his mirror image again.... We wait for him to figure it out for himself... it's just easier that way. Above the mirror is a plaque with the words: "TIRIANISPORITIUS" I pronounce the word slowly in common unsure of what the word means. Gorm asks me for a translation. I tell him that I don't know what the word means. He asks me if I can try to say it in orcish. I say that I can't because it's very difficult to pronounce the common letter I. (Which is why when we speak common we almost always say something like: Me Smash or me want your wyfe and baby). He suggest that I just don't say the I's. Transport Us, suddenly we find ourselves surrounded my gold. Oh those first few seconds will live in memory forever. I notice a pile of tomes and run over gleefully. Grutt runs over to a small pile and starts scooping the gold coins into his backpack. Gorm runs over to a gleeming sword with a golden dragon hilt. Krunc seemingly leaps into a pile of coins and swims through them as if they were a mere liquid. But all that joy was about to be momentarily taken from us.... the pile of coins quickly formed into a large dragon shaped mass. Dumbfounded we stared at the creature. Rearing it's head back and with a loud roar it suddenly blasts out a large quantity of coins and gems pelting Krunc and Grutt. Time slows down, I pull out my Scythe and charge from one side as Gorm charges from another. We time our charge to perfection arriving at the same time. He couldn't possibly have dodged both of us, he didn't even dodge either of us. Scythe and Falchion send a shower of coins through the room. Grutt pulls out his spear covered in runes to Gruumsh and yelling a war cry hurls himself at the coin dragon, his spear slams into the creatures head. I barely notice that his broken nose realigns itself and his swollen eye, is perfectly fine. SLAM, never look at Grutt during battle I scold myself, the dragon's tail hammers into my arm. It might be broken, but Orcs don't feel pain like the lesser races do. Krunc arrives smashing the creature with his morning star ripping through one of it's legs, which scatter across the floor and fall as coins. I notice that the coins scattered across the room are rolling towards the dragon and already a leg is reforming. The dragon isn't the only one who can heal in seconds; I feel my self healing already, Krunc wields a divine power he claims comes from the dragons themselves this power gifts his allies with super fast healing. I slam my scythe again into the creature quickly followed by Gorms Falchion swing. Suddenly whatever magic held the creature together failed. All the coins in the room fell to the ground. In the middle of the pile was the sword with the golden dragon hilt. They all look to me to tell them if it's one of the magic items we seek. I confirm it is. The argument of who gets the sword took twenty minutes. Eventually Grutt backed down to his superior and Gorm picked the sword up. He smiled an evil smile before we all began to scoop up our rewards. We took as much as we could fit into our backs. (Which was everything) Most of it was copper coins though. We sing on our way out, the songs of our fathers, of our clan. At the chasm we stop for a while, trying to convince the little gremlins to come out. Unfortunately they ignore us and we'll never get the pleasure of killing the little bastards. Anger rises in me that we would have to leave them to live. We step outside into the starry night. Immediately we are assaulted; an ambush. Blocked by the narrow tunnel there is nothing those behind Krunc can do until he moves. Waiting outside is a man and a half orc. The human actually tries to hit krunc with his bare fist. Krunc takes the blow with a smile dodging to the side the great sword from the half orc. Krunc takes another blow as he runs by the human giving us room to escape. Behind him we all follow out, I turn the corner and see a dwarf and a female with a bow and crossbow in their hands. Me and Gorm charge the female, the terror she must have felt when Gorms magical longsword, wielded in two hands sliced her open like a boar on Guts day. A bolt slams into my lung, I feel blood filling up inside me and I almost topple over. But somehow I stay on my feet, ripping the bolt out of my chest. I scream at the dwarf, to his surprise, in dwarvish, "WHAT KIND OF DWARF USES A CROSSBOW YOU *****!" I feel the wound close up and secure in myself to not fall over I charge at the dwarf fully intending to sever his head and use it as a bowl for months. He nimbly leaps to the right dodging my swing. Gorm catches him with his sword, slicing through his entire body cleanly. The dwarf is dead before his body crumpled to the ground. (29 points of damage, record for the campaign). I look back and see that the monk has been slaughtered and the half-orc running for his life. I rip the dwarf's hands off his crossbow and attempt to hit the fleeing coward, but in the cold night I miss wide left. We instantly search the bodies for valuables. I find a blue potion on the dwarf. We then agree that we can follow his bleeding, footsteps through the snow. We begin the chase. Running for miles we eventually catch up to him, holed out in a tree. He attempts to reason with us. Instead we feasted that night on delicious raw half-orc flesh. Going back to the half-orc city we spread the news that we were victorious. Buy lots of alcohol and new equipment and we rest for several days. (So Gorm could get his constitution back from 5 to 15). Unfortunately the magical falchion and the gauntlet and the siangham dissapeared the moment we left the cave. This adventure was a bust, only one magical weapon and we don't even know what it does. We attempt to find out if their are any half-orc wizards in this town who can identify the sword. I'm met with vacant stares. What?!?! I thought half-orcs were suppose to be 'smarter' than regular orcs. Ding Level 2